to get rid of the article? No, it is here still," and
she put her hand upon her side. "It is here still, and very troublesome
I find it. I suppose the time will come when it will die away. They say
that every plant will fade if it be shut in from the light, and never
opened to the rains of heaven."

"Alas! alas!" he said. "I did not know that you would feel like that."

"Of course I feel. I have had something to do with my life, and I have
done this with it! Two men have honoured me with their choice, and out
of the two I have chosen--Mr. Houghton. I comfort myself by telling
myself that I did right;--and I did do right. But the comfort is not
very comforting." Still he sat looking at the fire. He knew that it was
open to him to get up and swear to her that she still had his heart.
She could not be angry with him as she had said as much to himself. And
he almost believed at the moment that it was so. He was quite alive to
the attraction of the wickedness, though, having a conscience, he was
aware that the wickedness should, if possible, be eschewed. There is no
romance in loving one's own wife. The knowledge that it is a duty
deadens the pleasure. "I did not mean to say all this," she exclaimed
at last, sobbing.

"Adelaide!" he said.

"Do you love me? You may love me without anything wrong."

"Indeed I do." Then there was an embrace, and after that he hurried
away, almost without another word.

CHAPTER XIX.

RATHER "BOISTEROUS."

"After all, he's very dreary!" It was this that Adelaide Houghton spoke
to herself as soon as Lord George had left her. No doubt the whole work
of the interview had fallen on to her shoulders. He had at last been
talked into saying that he loved her, and had then run away frightened
by the unusual importance and tragic signification of his own words.
"After all, he's very dreary."

Mrs. Houghton wanted excitement. She probably did like Lord George as
well as she liked any one. Undoubtedly she would have married him had
he been able to maintain her as she liked to be maintained. But, as he
had been unable, she had taken Mr. Houghton without a notion on her
part of making even an attempt to love him. When she said that she
could not afford to wear a heart,--and she had said so to various
friends and acquaintances,--she did entertain an idea that
circumstances had used her cruelly, that she had absolutely been forced
to marry a stupid old man, and that therefore some little free